Are You Planning to Fail?

April 2, 2014

If there is one constant in the website development business, it is that there will always be change. And as things change, your business strategy needs to adjust accordingly to maximize effectiveness and avoid being put into a competitive disadvantage. With a modicum of planning, businesses can use these technology changes and market shifts to their advantage. Conversely, companies that don’t do this end-up lagging further and further behind.

When it comes to your online strategy, we are very aware of how a business’s lack of proper planning can result in last-minute changes to any number of web development projects they may have in the works. Indeed, we often see how poor planning can lead to longer development times, sloppy code with bugs and errors, and insufficient care given to the site architecture. These can conspire to result in a poor user experience, which can be harmful to both a company’s brand, and their bottom line.

As developers, we seek to address the poor planning concern by spending more time upfront—we strive to do less “selling,” and more question asking. And while this may initially seem counter-productive, we have found the “slow down to speed up” mantra saves both developers and clients time and money in the end. In this method, there tend to be fewer requirement changes and new functionality requests are reduced.

“If you fail to prepare then you are preparing to fail” – Benjamin Franklin

For clients, we recommend thinking about how you want your site to operate. First, pretend you are the customer. Then, go ahead and think about your actual customers, and what they might like. What functionality would you want to change? What content would you want added (or removed)? You should also keep in mind that a website has a “life-cycle,” where it’s created, then grows, matures, and is eventually retired. Creating a new site to address new user requirements is a good way of understanding why a new website should be part of every long-term strategy. This cycle should be part of your planning, even if the current site seems perfectly functional.

Of course, all the planning in the world won’t be of value if it’s not acted upon. Fortunately, we have a lot of experience guiding decision-makers across dozens of industries in turning thoughts and ideas into tangible plans of action. Please contact us if you’d like to talk about your current plan, or if you’d like help getting started. After all, if you’re failing to prepare, then you are really just preparing to fail.

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